THE SCHOLAR GIPSY
And round green roots and yellowing stalks I see
Pale pink convolvulus in tendrils creep ;
And air-swept lindens yield
Their scent, and rustle down their perfumed
showers
Of bloom on the bent grass where I am laid,
And bower me from the August sun with shade;
And the eye travels down to Oxford's towers.
And near me on the grass lies Glanvil's book—
Come, let me read the oft-read tale again !
The story of the Oxford scholar poor, 10
Of pregnant parts and quick inventive brain,
Who, tired of knocking at preferment's door,
One summer-morn forsook
His friends, and went to learn the gipsy-lore,
And roam'd the world with that wild brother-
hood,
And came, as most men deem'd, to little good,
But came to Oxford and his friends no more.
But once, years after, in the country-lanes,
Two scholars, whom at college erst he knew,
Met him, and of his way of life enquired ; 20
Whereat he answer'd, that the gipsy-crew,
His mates, had arts to rule as they desired
The workings of men's brains,
And they can bind them to what thoughts they
will.
" And I," he said, " the secret of their art,
When fully learn'd, will to the world impart;
But it needs heaven-sent moments for this skill."
This said, he left them, and return'd no more.—
But rumours hung about the country-side,
That the lost Scholar long was seen to stray, 30
Seen by rare glimpses, pensive and tongue-tied,